TrueBlue4ever

The Bombers will officially clinch THIS week if they win. It is a mathematical impossibility for them not to, even if the next game involving Calgary and Sask is in the future. But I get what you are saying about how the league does these things. They won’t put the “X” in until next week’s game, but they could and should after this Friday if the Bombers win. But 4D chess has never been their strong suit, just look at video review.

Refs don’t share your imagination. They save all of their imagination for the replay booth when trying to conjure up an explanation for their decisions.

Yes, but even if Calgary wins, they still play Saskatchewan next week. If they lose then, then they go to six losses. If the Riders lose that game, they go to 5 losses and we would be 9-5 with the season series against them. So either way one of Calgary or Sask can’t pass us. All we need is a win and no matter what else happens we clinch a playoff spot.

The Calgary game is irrelevant. Since Calgary plays Sask again, if the Stamps lose that game they have 6 losses and cannot catch a Winnipeg team with 9 wins. If Sask loses they have 5 losses and lose the tiebreaker with Winnipeg based on the season series. If the game ends up tied, Calgary would still finish behind Winnipeg in points. So just a win and we have a playoff spot.

This weekend’s game scores seemed to show how close the teams are other than Winnipeg. Those other 3 games could have gone either way. So the rankings could be flipped from 2-7 and really hard to argue it. But taking recent trends into account: 1. Winnipeg then the Grand Canyon, then 2. Toronto - at some point you are what your record says you are. Two wins this week, beat Calgary in Calgary and hung the only L on the Bombers this year. 3. BC - should not be this high, but with the other teams’ movement they get it by default. 4. Hamilton - they should not be this high having lost two straight, but those were razor thin losses and they still have the talent and coaching to make noise down the stretch. 5. Calgary - rising but I am still not convinced they are anywhere near their past selves. 6. Saskatchewan - in a tailspin ever since their set against the Bombers, may be some infighting now that the cracks are showing so definitely trending down. 3 to 6 you could pick names out of a hat and whatever order they came out in would be acceptable. 7. Montreal - so they have won 2 in a row and get Ottawa twice more, so they will end up with a decent record, but they look really bad doing it. Three of their 4 wins have been against the Elks and RedBlacks and their 4th was a game Hamilton gave away. Probably should have lost yesterday. And here’s an interesting debate. Which phenom QB from last year looks more like a pretender this year, Fajardo or Adams Jr. ? This may be too low, but I have given up trying to figure them out. 8. Ottawa - very little talent, but they are scrappy and that defence actually looks pretty good. 9. Edmonton - Hard to believe that with some of the supposed star power on paper they have, especially on offence, that they are so inept. Blow it up.

Tell me about it. Bomber scapegoat of the week has been hard to come up with. Have to defer to Rod Black, LaPo, and Dave Donaldson in lieu of active scapegoats.

Apparently there is a lady in Nebraska who is 114.

Remember when people thought the schedule was so unfair to the Bombers because we did not get to face Ottawa like every other team and were stuck with Edmonton 3 times?

If I read the rule book correctly, the ball must be BETWEEN the goal posts, and the goal post is imagined to reach up to infinity. So a ball over the top of the goal post is imagined to hit that goal post, so the field goal attempt would fail.

Over talking things that don’t deserve our attention is the #1 hobby around here. Exhibits A and B - all things Saskatchewan and Glen Suitor.

If you believe this is inevitable, then your original thought of “the only hope America has of surviving” is moot - it is already dead if there is no way of bringing the hard right wing back from the edge. So if you aren’t going to try and save them, then for sure go hard after Trump we al, and be prepared to burn the Republican party to the ground and face the war those supporters will bring as a shoe that his brand of politics won’t be allowed. But if democracy is what you strive for, work to make voting easier for all and put in safeguards so that the right wing courts and Republican state leaders can’t rig the electoral vote rather than putting Donald in his place.

I remember a kicker (maybe Westwood) saying that kickers get razzed in practice all the time, the whole “not really a football player” rap, but when the game is on the line and they are trotted out there to win or lose it, all exposed, every other player on the team has said to him “no way would I want that kind of solo attention on myself with the whole game resting totally on my shoulders”. The good kickers thrive on that pressure, wanting that spotlight. Other players make mistakes a lot more than kickers, receiver running a bad route or dropping a pass, QB throwing an INT, o-line misses a block, DBs fail more often than they succeed based on QB completion percentages, but none of them get screamed at to be cut after an error or two or three in a game. And even if a kick is blocked or the snap is bad or the hold fails, it’s the kicker who gets booed. Not making excuses for Mourtada, who has been objectively subpar, and it is the individualized nature of a kicker position that they are less a part of a whole unit like other positions, but I don’t think any other player on the team is thinking “I never would have gotten away with mistakes like him.”

You don’t think all of Trump’s followers won’t become more hardened, seeing their messiah railroaded by the corrupt government?

Nash can kill penalties apparently. Gus does not. Funny how 1,600 career NHL games and over 725 wins as a coach will give someone that sense of success.

So further to the woes of the Argos and their pitiful attendance, here is an article on the problems getting to BMO Field. https://www.google.com/amp/s/3downnation.com/2021/10/08/getting-to-bmo-field-in-toronto-is-a-terrible-experience/amp/ And my brother in Toronto sent me this column from a local writer there this morning: A friend of mine decided a few months back that he wanted to buy season tickets for the Argos. I know that’s rather unusual these days — but so was his journey in trying to purchase the most available sporting ticket in Toronto. He called the Argos and was put on hold. After 45 minutes or so of waiting, he hung up. He called again, this time to Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, the Argos owner, and the result wasn’t much different. More time on hold. I told him to try emailing the sales reps and gave him two names of those who have sold me tickets in the past. He emailed and at first without response. A few days later, he heard from an Argo rep. It took numerous phone calls and emails and communications still for the sale to eventually occur — my buddy bought Argo season tickets. Through almost no help of the Argos, which by itself is rather remarkable considering how desperate the Argos should be to sell tickets to anyone still interested in going to their games. And just last week, another person I know wanted to buy four additional tickets for their game Wednesday night against Ottawa. He is a season ticket holder but wanted to bring others along with him for the experience. He phoned the Argos and phoned the Argos again. They never called back. He never got to speak to a person. He gave up rather than buying the additional tickets. The first-place Argos had a record small crowd of 6,788 for their game against the Redblacks. Interest may be at an all-time low. But an inability to treat willing customers properly or at all — at this time in their history, really at any time, is simply inexcusable.

So we have 16 points now. Calgary and BC can tie us in points and be ahead of us in the standings provided they win the season series. Saskatchewan and every Eastern team needs to get to 17 points minimum to pass us. Edmonton and Ottawa already cannot pass us based on the tiebreaking rules. So, although they have not mathematically clinched a crossover playoff spot yet, for the Bombers to miss the playoffs ALL of the the following needs to happen: - Bombers lose every game from here on out, including to Calgary by 3 or more points and to BC by 22 or more points. - Edmonton loses every game from here on out - Ottawa loses every game from here on out - Other than games involving Winnipeg, Edmonton, or Ottawa, the remaining 6 teams must all get exactly these records in games against each other for all of them to finish ahead of Winnipeg: Sask: 1-1-1 Cal: 2-1 BC: 2-2 Tor: 1-2-1 Ham: 2-1-1 Mtl: 0-1-1 The odds of all of that happening are so small that I cannot compute it To simplify things, no matter what else happens, if the Bombers win one more game they clinch a West playoff spot. Win 2 and they clinch a home playoff date. If one of those two wins is against BC, or even if they lose to BC by 20 points or less but still win 2 games, they will finish number 1 in the West. So they can clinch top spot in the West within 2 weeks.

Yep. Was prepared to give him the bye to get it sorted out. Not any more.

It’s weird since he continues to kick everything straight. I’m no kicker but one would think fixing an approach angle would be the simplest mechanical thing to fix. He is striking the ball well.

Taman was assistant GM and GM from 1999-2008 and among his most notable trades, he swapped a conditional draft pick and Chris Perez to BC for Moe Eliwonibi and Khari Jones in 2000. He traded a first and third round pick in 2001 to get the rights to Doug Brown (the first round pick given up turned into Jon Oosterhaus, who was cut by Calgary and scooped up by the Bombers anyway). He traded a first round pick in 2004 to land Kevin Glenn. and he swapped a conditional pick in 2008 to bring in Zeke Moreno. I agree long term it is not a good strategy to keep depth, but Gauthier was hardly the only good draft pick trade he made.

The 1990 defence is regarded by many as the best defence the Bombers ever had (the 1994 offence was considered the best ever, and the 1984 team the greatest all around team - all this according to Bob Irving). Irving himself said on the post game show that this defence is the best he has ever seen. The 1990 defence was solid on creating turnovers. That squad set CFL records with a staggering 48 interceptions, 89 total turnovers, and 13 forced turnovers in one game. In my mind this defence is much more impressive overall, and it’s not really a tight race. Right now we are at 12.2 points per game against. The all-time record for fewest points per game is Edmonton in 1955 when they gave up 117 in 16 games, for a 7.5 average per game. Offence was very different then, so the recognized modern record (post-1958) is BC in 1964, who gave up 168 points in 16 games for a 10.5 per game average. The last time a team gave up less than 200 points in a season was Hamilton in 1967. Since the introduction of the 18 game schedule, the lowest points allowed in a year was 302 by Edmonton in 1989. Over 18 games we are on pace to give up 220.

So this would give us some Hope? I like the distance. But all of those kicks are inside the hash marks. We’ve been seduced by player promotion video before. And for those debating giving up a precious first round pick for a kicker, quick, without looking it up, name each team’s first round pick this year. The first overall pick for the last 5 years. The Bombers’ first round picks the last 5 years. A CFL draft pick is not the cornerstone of a franchise some would think it is, IMO. I think they would be quite expendable for a guaranteed good leg. But I agreed with the Taman philosophy that a proven vet was more valuable than a draft crapshoot. I know many saw that as foolish.

Thought it would make my post too long, lol.

So I saw the new Bond film “No Time to Die” on opening night. Had heard rumours about the plot for a while, and had some speculation on which way they were going to go. I’ll say that my original guess was wrong, but the rumours were true. Some really big stuff happens in the movie. So if anyone wants to discuss plot points, be aware that there are MAJOR spoilers in here. Last warning, don’t scroll down if you want to see the movie first. And even more importantly, if you hate my long posts, don’t even bother diving into this epic poem. Here we go………. . . . So, my original thought was that this was going to be a re-make of “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” with Madeline Swann being killed and setting up the Bond revenge arc, since a lot of the Craig series has been a re-boot of the original Bond story. And there are hints at it, from an opening scene line “we have all the time on the world” offering major foreshadowing. There is even a subtle replaying of the action theme from “OHMSS” in a mid-movie scene, and the movie closes with the Louis Armstrong song that closed “OHMSS” as well. So, does Madeline die? No. Does someone significant die? Oh yeah. Multiple people, in fact. First, Felix Lighter gets offed about a third of the way in. And then even bigger, Blofeld gets killed (by Bond himself, albeit unintentionally). But those aren’t even the biggest twists. One - Bond has a daughter with Swann he did not know about for five years, and two, the biggest shock of all…..James Bond is killed at the end. When Craig said he was done, I did not expect him to take Bond with him. So yes there is foreshadowing and hints dropped in the movie, and I kind of saw it coming to be honest, but still a real surprise. Apparently the original director, Danny Boyle (of Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire fame) quit the film over creative differences. Well we know now that the argument was over killing Bond - he was dead set against it, so he was let go. That’s when the rumours first leaked in Britain that Bond was going to die. And as the end was coming, I kept imagining how they might throw a curveball and resurrect him in the next film. The finale has Bond needing to blow up an island where a virology lab exists with a deadly plague being manufactured (ironic that the original release date was right when COVID exploded worldwide). The island was a WW2 silo so there are blast doors that need to be opened to expose the lab when MI6 missles are launched to destroy the facility. Bond opens the doors and is going to escape but the villain re-closes the doors, and when Bond goes back he is shot and mortally wounded (actually shot twice, falls, and then the villain has a clear shot into his back while he is down from mere feet away, yet he survives that). They fight and Bond overpowers and kills the baddie, but not before he is infected with the virus. The key to the virus is that it is DNA encoded, so it can target a specific person and kill them pretty much instantaneously upon touch, but be harmless to the carrier. The movie reveals that there is no cure, so once you are infected it is with you for life. The DNA virus Bond gets infected with is targeted for Madeline, so Bond would kill her or their child as soon as he touches them. So bleeding heavily, he needs to re-open the blast doors again and won’t have time to escape. Plus, he re-confirms that the virus had no cure so he does not want to live and kill his family later anyway. So he bids a tearful goodbye to Madeline (over a radio communication) and stands above the silo while missles rain down on him. So could he have somehow survived? Well, one theory I have is that since the blast doors would have blocked the missles from getting through, he could have ducked behind them and survived the blast. As for the virus, it was controlled by nanobots (which is how they could be coded to someone’s specific DNA profile) so if there was an electrical component to them, perhaps they could be fried so as to neutralize the virus. And just before he embarked on the mission, Q gives Bond a watch with an EMP device in it to destroy any electrical circuit and bypass computer-locked doors (small nitpicky point here - Bond uses the watch twice, once with spectacular results during a fight, and yet his radio earpiece he has never gets fried so he can keep communicating with Q - important so he can have his final goodbye with Madeline, but still a plot hole). So maybe Bond could use the EMP to kill the nanobots as well. Problem with that theory is twofold - one, if he can survive he would go back to Madeline and their child one would assume, unless he does the Spider-Man thing where he knows they will always be in danger if he lives, so he chooses to pretend to stay dead to protect them, and goes on in secret as an agent. The second problem is that the way the ending is filmed, they pretty much show him getting blown up by the missles, and his smart blood tracker being monitored by Q is shown going offline, just to make sure we get it that he is dead. So what now? The end credits run the tag line “James Bond will return” so how exactly? A few theories on that. One - they find a way to make him survive (and I just gave a plausible script for it, if you discount the filming that SHOWS HIM BEING BLOWN UP. Two - the name James Bond is a code name, so whoever gets the 007 number also inherits the name. Would be neat, and then even more than ever separate all the different Bond actors as their own entities in the storyline. There was a cool moment where Bond goes to see M in his office, and on the walls are portraits of the past M’s, including Judi Dench and the second M, Robert Brown, it would be neat in future movies to see portraits of all the Bonds, and give a brief history of each to the new Bond recruit, also have some fun with it Connnery - this Bond retired after he killed Blofeld and finished his revenge spree. Lazenby- this Bond left the service after his wife was murdered (maybe committed suicide?) Moore - discharged with honours after reaching mandatory retirement age Dalton - went rogue after being expelled from MI6, last known whereabouts was South America and believed to be working as a hit man for hire. Brosnan - after we left him for dead in a South Korean prison by MI6, he got his revenge by stealing a cache of diamonds we sent him to retrieve and has disappeared (presumably in his invisible car) Craig - died in active service Now the headache there is that some plot points carried over between actors (both Connery and Moore made reference to his wife Tracy’s death after Lazenby’s character had experienced it in his movie) and others have been re-told in different timelines (Craig basically re-booted the series and the Blofeld angle, so he does not exist either as a stand alone or as following the Bond arc the other actors started, he is telling the same story in a different parallel universe (the multiverse seems to be the new go to in Hollywood). The other issue is that Craig’s Bond explicitly referenced his parents whose last name was in fact Bond, so it has not been established as a code name. Second option is being him back to life and pretend he did not die, but that kills and emotional heft this movie had. Third option is do what Craig did and just create a new Bond in a new universe and start in a different timeline. Could always re-visit other stuff like 1960’s Cold War espionage. But then it erases all of Craig’s legacy. There is something nice about referencing the previous franchise. But Craig’s Bond got too caught is serialized storytelling rather than having each movie stand independent of the others, and it already erased the legacy of all the prior Bonds, so there is precedent to this idea. Fourth, create a new 007 who is not Bond and just carry on. They already did that in this movie, but are you really going to bury the line “Bond. James Bond” forever now? Option 5, just call it quits Bond has been played out, and basically shifted into Jason Bourne territory, and Mission Impossible has taken over as the new indestructible super agent with gadgets franchise But his name brand recognition of James Bond and the movie profits that it can generate virtually guarantee this won’t happen. One last thought on Craig’s Bond. I was weaned on Bond in the Roger Moore era, so o was used to the tongue in cheek humor and wild gadgets. I found it hard to rank Connery’s performance with the others because of this, and his movies are very dated compared to the others - the sexism in them has aged terribly. But I think Craig takes a run at being the best ever, and ironically it is because he is the most unBond-like character of them all. You saw him get hurt. He quit the job 3 times. Rather than being a heartless invincible spy like the books had him be, he is an assassin with a heart, whose conscience eats away at him. There is far more emotion and character development In this movie than any other Bond action film, even topping the death scene in OHMSS which was the only other time Bond was treated as a human being an not an unstoppable killing machine, impervious to pain or injury. I think the change was for the better, as the movies had become a parody by the time he took over from Brosnan. But once they broke the formula, what could they do but kill him off? Curious to see what direction they go next, but it will be tough to re-invent the character again, or go back to his original immortal spy idea, since it became boring too. Anyone else see it yet? Thoughts on the story choice to give him a kid and kill him off, who the next Bond will be, and where they go from here?

Nice stop.

Well, ugly game but the good news is we are up by 14 going into the 4th and have only given up 6 points all season.